Apple Claims TSMC vs Samsung A9 Chip Variants Result in Only 2-3% Difference in 'Real World' Battery Life

[dampfnudel]

My only other worry is that my phone gets REALLY hot with usage. Uncomfortably hot yesterday when I played Badlands for 10 min.

Yeah, I think this is a more significant issue and Apple is trying to downplay this while at the same time they may trying to shift all of their A9 sourcing to TSMC, realizing their mistake to include Samsung and their inferior chip this time. Samsung provided great chips and other components to Apple in the past, but something definitely went wrong this time. Having 2 more hours of battery life with a TSMC A9 is something many of us would prefer, especially during a long workday or during a long flight. If it was just 10-15 more minutes, it wouldn't matter, but a couple of hours???

 

[MrXiro]

Yeah, I think this is a more significant issue and Apple is trying to downplay this while at the same time they may trying to shift all of their A9 sourcing to TSMC, realizing their mistake to include Samsung and their inferior chip this time. Samsung provided great chips and other components to Apple in the past, but something definitely went wrong this time. Having 2 more hours of battery life with a TSMC A9 is something many of us would prefer, especially during a long workday or during a long flight. If it was just 10-15 more minutes, it wouldn't matter, but a couple of hours???

Well that's 2 hours at full throttle. Seems like Samsung down clocks more efficiently than the TSMC one hence the smaller gap when in real world usage. I stuck with my Sammy 6S+ and have been getting more than enough to battery life than I need in an average day, so I am ok with this. One the busiest day I still end with 20% or so at night. Having come from a 6, I have a few chargers at all my places I would need to top off so it's all good on my end here.

 

[roeiz]

I think some people need 2-3% more common sense when it comes to non-issues like these.

but it takes two hours to understand it...

 

[dmdev]

I've had pretty poor battery life from my 6s, compared to my 6, so out of curiosity I wrote a quick app and found out I have a Samsung chip. But then I decided to take a look at the battery usage in Settings.

Turns out the Facebook app was rapin' my battery in the background, regardless how often I actually used it. So I turned off Background App Refresh just for Facebook. And now things are looking great

So check your battery usage -- it might just be a badly behaving app.

 

[dmdev]

Reminds me a few years ago when Apple went to another manufacturer for Mac Book Air screens. Then everybody was checking their MacBooks to make sure they had the Samsung version and how better it was compared to the other one. Instead of just enjoying their Apple product. Semantics at its finest.

My 2012 retina MBP had one of the LG screens. I didn't know at the time there were different manufacturers, so I went to an Apple Store to report serious ghosting problems. And they confirmed it with a screen test they had already prepared.

They replaced it with a Samsung display for free, and I can say it was _much_ better. It's too bad that a month later I dropped my laptop and bent that screen :O

It cost me 800 to replace it. Fortunately the replacement was also a Samsung.

 

[Carotdo]

I bought an ip6s+ on launch day. It has a Samsung chip and horrible battery life. I had disabled app refresh,wife assist, Bluetooth, location service,40% brightness. I noticed the battery drained very quick appox. 1% per min for a normal web surfing. When the battery level is @50%; it dropped even at a faster rate. When the battery level is less than 10%, the phone will shut down by itself. I previously owned an ip6+ and my battery lasted all day. Since the day I have my 6S, I had to carry a charger with me at all time.. It's very frustrated and inconvenient. Today, I took it to Apple store so the tech can run some tests on it. The result came out as NORMAL. The tech replaced my unit with a new TSMC chip and I notice the battery seems holding up better and my phone is much cooler..

 

[linuxcooldude]

My 2012 retina MBP had one of the LG screens. I didn't know at the time there were different manufacturers, so I went to an Apple Store to report serious ghosting problems. And they confirmed it with a screen test they had already prepared.

They replaced it with a Samsung display for free, and I can say it was _much_ better. It's too bad that a month later I dropped my laptop and bent that screen :O

It cost me 800 to replace it. Fortunately the replacement was also a Samsung.

I'm sure both versions of screens have issues and are replaced regardless of manufacture.

 

[dampfnudel]

I've had pretty poor battery life from my 6s, compared to my 6, so out of curiosity I wrote a quick app and found out I have a Samsung chip. But then I decided to take a look at the battery usage in Settings.

Turns out the Facebook app was rapin' my battery in the background, regardless how often I actually used it. So I turned off Background App Refresh just for Facebook. And now things are looking great

So check your battery usage -- it might just be a badly behaving app.

Yeah, it's well known that the FB app is a battery dracula. I always turn off background app refresh on that. Anyway, I just downloaded the Lirum Lite app and tested it on my 5s. I'm not sure if I should use it or not when I get my 6s.

 

[mkimid]

The brightness and volume are adjusted to minimum, and to turn off automatically to reduce the influence of the screen. ... The phones are fully charged to 100% and restarted.

…Test 1: Safari Javascript rendering complex animations. ... CPU utilization is running about 60%. After 38 minutes, the Samsung 14nm has 59% charge remaining [but the] TSMC 16nm has 74%.

…Test 2: NPlayer LAN RMVB video playback. ... After 106 minutes, the Samsung 14nm has 42% charge remaining [but the] TSMC 16nm has 57%.​

http://www.computerworld.com/articl...dware/apple-iphone-6s-batterygate-itbwcw.html

Yes, it is serious issue now, actually, I am using soft decoding movie player due to the subtitle, i just hope that problem can be fixed with the frimeare update even it is really hard to be expected,

I do not understand how apple can get just 2-3% of runtime data,

 

[darthpikachu]

Well that's 2 hours at full throttle. Seems like Samsung down clocks more efficiently than the TSMC one hence the smaller gap when in real world usage. I stuck with my Sammy 6S+ and have been getting more than enough to battery life than I need in an average day, so I am ok with this. One the busiest day I still end with 20% or so at night. Having come from a 6, I have a few chargers at all my places I would need to top off so it's all good on my end here.

Nothing to do with being more efficient clocking down, it's just math at work. 10% of 20% difference is 2%. If in their "real life" tests, CPU only use up 10-15% of the battery where screen, cell, wifi etc takes up the rest. Then of-course it's only 2-3% difference in "real life" tests. I'd imagine in standby there isn't any difference between the two cpu as neither are being used.

FYI, to me it's not that the Samsung chip is bad. Apple should not have had two chips thats so different in a sensitive area like battery life in the same product. Shove one in 6s and the other in 6s+ and no one would even care about this.

 

[MrXiro]

Nothing to do with being more efficient clocking down, it's just math at work. 10% of 20% difference is 2%. If in their "real life" tests, CPU only use up 10-15% of the battery where screen, cell, wifi etc takes up the rest. Then of-course it's only 2-3% difference in "real life" tests. I'd imagine in standby there isn't any difference between the two cpu as neither are being used.

FYI, to me it's not that the Samsung chip is bad. Apple should not have had two chips thats so different in a sensitive area like battery life in the same product. Shove one in 6s and the other in 6s+ and no one would even care about this.

Ah, got it. That totally makes sense. Thanks!

Agreed on that, they could easily have done that and avoided this consumer backlash.

 

[DCIFRTHS]

you surely spoke with 60-70 millions of iPhone 4 customers out there .... sure
there were no further "revisions" of the iPhone 4. only one, sold for 4 years.
the CDMA is the only variant produced, to some carriers that doesn't use GSM frequencies

I never implied that I talked to that many people. I said that you are the first person that I know of that didn't have a problem with he GSM version of the iPhone4.

Apple introduced the CDMA version with a revised antenna. Physically, it had four breaks instead of three, and helped the attenuation problem (or NON-problem) as you state. This revised antenna change stuck though the 4S version for both CDMA and GSM.

But you must be right, the GSM iPhone 4 didn't suck...

 

[Max(IT)]

I never implied that I talked to that many people. I said that you are the first person that I know of that didn't have a problem with he GSM version of the iPhone4.

Apple introduced the CDMA version with a revised antenna. Physically, it had four breaks instead of three, and helped the attenuation problem (or NON-problem) as you state. This revised antenna change stuck though the 4S version for both CDMA and GSM.

But you must be right, the GSM iPhone 4 didn't suck...

Yes I didn't have ANY single issue with the iPhone 4, and thanks to my job I used it all over the world.
No I'm not the only one saying that.

 

[Ries]

Yes I didn't have ANY single issue with the iPhone 4, and thanks to my job I used it all over the world.
No I'm not the only one saying that.

It was measured in a LAB, bridge the gap and you might as well use a wire attached to a brick as antenna.

 

[Max(IT)]

It was measured in a LAB, bridge the gap and you might as well use a wire attached to a brick as antenna.

That's plain false.
I'm quite tired to speak about it in 2015, but If you live in an area with a good signal strength coverage, you are not even going to notice it (you didn't lose a bar).
If you are in already problematic area, then bridging the gap the signal could drop to 1-2 bars.
Yet I didn't have any calls dropped....

Unfortunately, post from 2011 aren't available on the forum, but I showed a few videos at the time

 

[Ries]

That's plain false.
I'm quite tired to speak about it in 2015, but If you live in an area with a good signal strength coverage, you are not even going to notice it (you didn't lose a bar).
If you are in already problematic area, then bridging the gap the signal could drop to 1-2 bars.
Yet I didn't have any calls dropped....

Unfortunately, post from 2011 aren't available on the forum, but I showed a few videos at the time

Youre' tired to talk about it because you're wrong.

The signal drops 20dB, that means a signal drop of 99% after you bridge it (each 3dB halfes the power) compared to not touching it.

 

[duckie7777]

"My sources tell me that Samsung's 14nm is 3-6 months ahead of TSMC’s 16FF+. My sources also tell me that TSMC 16nm FF+ is today the most competitive FinFET offering, meaning power, performance, area, AND cost. This is based on information from the associated PDKs and not from PowerPoint slides or press releases."

- Daniel Nenni 6/8/2014

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/3546-tsmc-vs-intel-vs-samsung-finfets.html

 

[asleep]

"My sources tell me that Samsung's 14nm is 3-6 months ahead of TSMC’s 16FF+. My sources also tell me that TSMC 16nm FF+ is today the most competitive FinFET offering, meaning power, performance, area, AND cost. This is based on information from the associated PDKs and not from PowerPoint slides or press releases."

- Daniel Nenni 6/8/2014

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/3546-tsmc-vs-intel-vs-samsung-finfets.html

From same site...

We would remind readers That TSMC has made a very big deal about their power consumption/leakage advantage over other competitive manufacturing processes. TSMC has claimed up to a 20% power advantage in their 16nm process which may jive with these unconfirmed comparison results.​

Apparently TSMC isn't surprised at the ~20% advantage.

 

[MaciMac100]

So we have,

TSMC saying 20% power advantage

vs

Samsung mocking iPhone battery life by calling users "wall huggers" in ads

Hmmm... Interesting stuff.

 

[kvnt]

Oct 9, 2015
Apple Inc. May Have Made a Huge Mistake in Having Samsung Build the A9

"the TSMC 16nm FinFET Plus process features better electrical characteristics than the Samsung 14-nanometer process.

"What is more interesting, though, is that, according to a source that I believe to be reliable, TSMC's A9 yields are much greater than Samsung's A9 yields. In fact, that same source informed me that TSMC's A9 yields are twice those of Samsung's"

"It's no surprise that Apple is going all TSMC with the A10"

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...may-have-made-a-huge-mistake-in-having-s.aspx

 

[uwdude]

This story is having some legs isn't it....probably won't go away. Has this made it to the mainstream media yet?

 

[roeiz]

well well... it seems that Apple will have to start replacing the Samsung devices now...
tough luck. will have to lose some money

 

[Artimus12]

Perhaps Apple only confirmed this in order to take a sly dig at Samsung! Otherwise I can't understand why they'd bother to comment on what they say is next to no difference.

footnote: I have the TSMC variant.

 

[macdragonfl]

I've had pretty poor battery life from my 6s, compared to my 6, so out of curiosity I wrote a quick app and found out I have a Samsung chip. But then I decided to take a look at the battery usage in Settings.

Turns out the Facebook app was rapin' my battery in the background, regardless how often I actually used it. So I turned off Background App Refresh just for Facebook. And now things are looking great

So check your battery usage -- it might just be a badly behaving app.

Facebook app is a battery killer even before iOS 9. I access through Safari and do a home screen shortcut much less drain.

 

[dampfnudel]

Oct 9, 2015
Apple Inc. May Have Made a Huge Mistake in Having Samsung Build the A9

"the TSMC 16nm FinFET Plus process features better electrical characteristics than the Samsung 14-nanometer process.

"What is more interesting, though, is that, according to a source that I believe to be reliable, TSMC's A9 yields are much greater than Samsung's A9 yields. In fact, that same source informed me that TSMC's A9 yields are twice those of Samsung's"

"It's no surprise that Apple is going all TSMC with the A10"

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...may-have-made-a-huge-mistake-in-having-s.aspx

I have a feeling in a month or two that Apple will only be using the TSMC A9 with the 6s and 6s+. Maybe it happened already and every iPhone 6s/6s+ being manufactured now has the TSMC A9. I definitely want my 6s to have a TSMC A9 now. I wonder now if this played a role in deciding what CPU the iPad mini 4 got (not enough "good" A9s for even the 6s/6s+).